The Oncology Hospital at the QSUT is short of the drug Keytruda 25 mg/4 ml, a vital treatment for patients suffering from cancer. Each dose of Keytruda costs around 3 thousand euros, but it is not available in the hospital pharmacy.
VNA spoke with a 62-year-old woman with stage four cancer, one of the patients who directly faces the lack of this treatment.
Her story began in March 2022, when a small mark appeared on her skin. In July, she was diagnosed with a tumor and underwent surgery in August. A few months later, the disease returned. The final diagnosis was made abroad: stage four cancer, with spread to the bones and tissues.
In Turkey, he was prescribed the appropriate therapy. He then received treatment for two years in Switzerland. But when he returned to Albania, he faced the same reality: the medicine he needed was in short supply in the public system.
Today, the disease has spread. The pain is constant. Every three weeks he travels from Durrës to the Oncology Department at the QSUT. Since 8 am he waits in the corridors, often until noon. The answer he gets is the same: he has to wait, while the medicine is missing.
Each dose of Keytruda costs about 3,000 euros. She needs two a month – about 6,000 euros, an unaffordable sum. Without this treatment, she says she feels at the mercy of fate.
In addition to the lack of medicine, even necessary examinations such as PET-Scan are not performed in the public system, forcing him to turn to the private sector at high costs of approximately 1,500 euros.
"Let me fight": 62-year-old woman with stage four cancer faces lack of vital medicine in Oncology
For a patient with advanced cancer, the lack of medicine is not just an administrative problem. It is an urgent issue that cannot be resolved in a country where "free healthcare" is propaganda that kills.
